‘I always wanted to do second chance learning’: identities and experiences of tutors on Access to Higher Education courses (original) (raw)
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Educational Studies in Mathematics
Drawing on the commognitive framework, we construe the secondary-tertiary transition (STT) as a distinctive element in the pedagogical discourses of various communities. Our interest rests with university tutors in light of the emergent recognition of their impact on undergraduates’ mathematics learning in many tertiary contexts worldwide. We aim to understand the roles of STT communication in tutors’ reflections on incidents that took place in their tutorials. Our participants were undergraduate students in the advanced stages of their mathematics degrees in a large New Zealand university and who were enrolled in a mathematics education course. Throughout the semester, the participants led tutorial sessions for first-year students and wrote reflections on classroom incidents that drew their attention. Our data corpus consisted of 58 reflections from 38 tutors collected over four semesters. The analysis revealed that STT communication featured in tutors’ descriptions of classroom in...
On reflection: mature students’ views of teaching and learning on Access to Higher Education Courses
International Studies in Sociology of Education, 2015
Mature students' experiences of learning and teaching on Access to Higher Education course are coloured by their socioeconomic backgrounds, their prior experiences of learning and their relationships with their tutors. After giving informed consent, 60 students and 20 tutors across seven colleges in a region of England in 2012-2013 took part in interviews on these topics, the former group on three occasions during the academic year. A further 500 students across the colleges completed two questionnaires during the year. Qualitative data were analysed inductively. Quantitative data were analysed with simple descriptive statistics. Findings suggest that students preferred tutors who treated them respectfully, modelled effective learning practices clearly and empowered them to be independent learners. They also welcomed working collaboratively with their fellow students and being supported by the institutions they attended.
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2014
Adult learners on Access to Higher Education courses struggled with institutional and social structures to attend their courses, but transformed their identities as learners through them. Although asymmetrical power relationships dominated the intentional learning communities of their courses, their work was facilitated by collaborative cultures and supportive tutors, and students gained the confidence to construct their own emergent communities of practice for learning. The students attended seven FE Colleges in the East Midlands of England. Data was collected by mixed methods within a social constructivist framework from students and their tutors.
‘We all know why we’re here’: Learning as a community of practice on Access to HE courses
Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2015
Hugh Busher is senior lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Leicester. His research interests lie in: people, power and culture & the development of communities in educational institutions; the interaction of policy and socio-economic contexts with the internal processes of educational institutions and the people in them; the development of students' and teachers' voices and their construction of identities in particular policy and socio-economic contexts.
Working with Underachieving Students in Higher Education: Fostering Inclusion through Narration and Reflexivity presents an international and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the relationships between narrative devices and reflexiv-ity in higher education. Stemming from a collaborative European research project called INSTALL (Innovative Solutions to Acquire Learning to Learn), it focuses on an innovative model aimed at promoting personal resources and reflective competen-cies in non-traditional, disadvantaged and underachieving students. The book is divided into three parts, with the first providing an exploration of the key theoretical issues that formed the basis of the theoretical and methodological approaches in the INSTALL Project. The second part presents an innovative narrative methodology and discusses the most significant phases of the training process and of the main products. The third and last part provides a broad discussion of higher education policies and of the need to encourage innovation and reforms to improve the academic inclusion of underachieving students. Chapters in the collection examine interventions in Italy, Romania, Ireland and Spain, using a broad transnational, intercultural and comparative approach, to consider narrative tools using four channels: metaphoric, iconographic, writing and the body. This book provides theoretical insights and practical methodologies which can be used to enhance quality teaching and innovation, as well as to help adapt to diversity in higher education. It will, therefore, be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of higher education; sociology of education; education policy and politics; cultural and developmental psychology; and narrative research, as well as to those studying counselling, mentoring and coaching.
A self study of a higher education tutor : how can I improve my practice?
2004
This thesis is a self-study of a tutor in higher education committed to practice improvement. It is presented as a study of singularity and an example of first person education action research. It is epistemologically and methodologically distinct in that it is based on my values as an educator and ideas about what constitutes loving and life-affirming educational practice. The aim of this thesis is to present a storied account of my inquiry, in which I explore what it means to live my values in practice. Through descriptions and explanations of my practice, this thesis unveils a process of action and reflection, punctuated by moments when I deny or fail to live my values fully in practice, prompting the iterative question “How do I improve my practice?”; the reflective process enabling me to better understand my practice and test out that understanding with others in the public domain. My claim to originality is embodied in the aesthetics of my teaching and learning relationships, ...
2019
The title of this paper is taken from a story written by Norah Nakitto, a tutor at Jinja Primary Teachers’ College (PTC) in Uganda. Like a majority of stories generated during a storytelling research project with Ugandan tutors, Norah’s focuses on professi onal learning. In this paper we explore tutor learning and professional identity in the context of national programmes promoting more inclusive and equitable teaching at the primary level (MOES 2019, UNAPD 2019), which have an impact on how tutors are expe cted to work. We draw on an analysis of 39 stories from research led by the TESSA (Teacher Education in Sub - Saharan Africa) programme in collaboration with Kyambogo University. The study was initiated to understand the impact of a TESSA - MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on tutors’ practices. However, the early stages of the research suggested that, despite well - articulated examples of impact from those who had engaged with it, uptake in the Ugandan PTCs was limited; none o...
Working With Me: Revisiting the Tutorial as Academic Care
Frontiers in Education, 2020
Tutoring in one form or another is a consistent feature in the higher education learning experience. However, the tutorial relationship involves an intricate mix of intra and interpersonal dynamics which influence short and long-term learning. In this paper, work from a phenomenological study of distance learning students provides transferable insights about the immediate and lasting impact of the tutorial relationship. Ideas from Heideggarian hermeneutic phenomenology are translated to the context of contemporary higher education to establish how achieving a sense of being-with has affective implications to help students to strengthen resilience and the capacity to challenge, confirm and develop confidence in their new learning, thinking and actions. The discussion introduces and unravels the nature of academic care in relation to working with learner vulnerability to enhance ability. Re-conceptualizing the tutorial as a form of academic care can provide support and security for learners at a time of unsettlement without lessening their autonomy. We argue that by creating an atmosphere of academic care, learners are empowered and inspired to be courageous and curious, both in the immediate and longer-term. The discussion refocuses the tutorial relationship through ideas and applied strategies for successful future-facing tutoring practices, without major upheaval to the existing operational tutoring infrastructure within the HEI.
EMERGING ISSUES II The Changing Roles and Identities of Teachers and Learners in Higher Education
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This book presents a wide selection of issues currently of interest and concern in higher education institutions in Ireland. The chapters are snapshots of the intersection between theory, practice and research in particular settings; they are not meant to be comprehensive. Nevertheless, they present practice approaches, new theoretical considerations and informal conversations, and include signposts to important literature in the area. The authors contextualise current concerns, and discuss how they have responded strategically to national and international trends in higher education. They also highlight how new roles and identities for staff and students in higher education have emerged in response to changes in institutional, social and technological contexts, among others. This book contains the following: (1) Higher Education in Ireland: Introduction (Bettie Higgs and Marian McCarthy); (2) Writing Identity through the Educational Developers in Ireland Network (EDIN) (Ciara O'...